CD Baby are donating $1 to for every album sold.
Dear Donna,The earthquake and its aftermath in Haiti have touched all of our lives. Many in the CD Baby family have already contributed as individuals, but we wanted to do more to help the victims of the horrible earthquake tragedy. By selling your music on CD Baby, you can help raise funds towards those affected by the disaster. Read the rest of this entry »
This week Australia was again wrangling over asylum seekers headed for Australian shores. Whilst the Rudd government has not been as overtly racist as that of John Howard, it still fails to lead the Australian people in how to combine both warmth and sense in tackling ‘the asylum seeker issue’ and the media as still to self interested to address their use of loaded terms which fan the flames of racism and sell their papers. Read the rest of this entry »
 In 1985 I wrote a song called Not Just Anything. In 2009, I rewrote the lyrics to form the song A Room With A View. Unlike the award winning Merchant Ivory film of the same name (adapted from the 1908 novel by E.M Forster) my song is not a about an Edwardian romance.  In 2007, I had written a filmscript, Mc Reedy’s Christmas (represented by Bicoastal Talent) about a post apocalyptic society and related to climate change in a world where we did nothing to stop it. The lyrics to A Room With A View were based on Mc Reedy’s world. Here’s its lyrics: Read the rest of this entry »
 Following the recent incendiary theatrics surrounding international autism expert and author, Tony Attwood, I invited him to a Skype interview. I recorded the hour long interview in which I asked Tony about his involvement with FAAS, his take on CAAD, his view on autistic culture and the autistic pride movement, about the concept of hate groups and whether he does farcical characterisations of non-spectrum people too. The result was an amusing interview over on my podcast site, Odd Pod. Read the rest of this entry »
 As governments worldwide put economy before climate let me quote from , New Scientist cover story, from 28th Feb 09 issue from article “Surviving in a Warmer World” by Gaia Vince, who on page 33 quotes Crutzen in conclusion:
“I would like to be optimistic that we’ll survive, but I’ve got no good reason to be. I order to be safe we would have to reduce our carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2015. We are currently putting in 3 percent more each year”.
Want to help change that? Lets stop over glorifying the replication process we call populating, get over ourselves, give the planet a rest and speak out to make the changes needed for us to be a planet that can still feed ourselves in 2015.
Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter
http://www.donnawilliams.net
 Heidi Everett is an awesome performer so it was a great honor to get this review from her. Enjoy. Here it is:
“The gig – ‘Rock and Rebuild’ benefit concert for Victoria’s bushfire crisis, was organised and promoted by Kaine Marsh, head of Finbar Production. The bands – A very eclectic yet thoroughly charismatic line up of artists who have some sort of connection with the towns affected by the fires. The location – Hurstbridge Oval, an iconic picture of pure Aussieness.
Tigger-dog and I had a visual introduction to Rock and Rebuild as the officially on-time Connex rolled into Hurstbridge station. A sun dried brick of a country oval transformed wonderfully into a fruitful orchard of stalls and country folk milling around a flat bed truck pumping out music with a whole lotta heart. As we lounged around in front of the stage, Donna and the Aspinauts sauntered into their first number and had the audience looking up from their snags to see what the hell had hit them front and centre between the eyes and ears.
A-ha! These were no ordinary folk songs to be kum-by-ya’d around the campfire, no way! As the guys in the Aspinauts band changed gear quicker than a red Ferrari, front-woman Donna kept apace brilliantly with her phonetically charged lyrics and mesmerizing hands shaping the melody like an artist at the easel. I watched, captivated like the crowd around me. Each song blurred deliciously into the next with Donna’s spoken word etching out the poetry of human condition, always so very eloquent and astutely connected to the song the band was about to launch into, such a poignant moment when Donna painted the scene of a blackened landscape, burnt by the very fires this benefit concert set to quell.
The set itself was just the right amount of time for Donna and the Aspinauts own musical genre to be smacked firmly into the hearts and minds of the audience. As a muso myself, I intuitively looked around to see the reaction of people who might not have had the chance to experience such a richly flavoured ensemble before, and as a muso, I can confidently say that The Aspinauts had the crowd in the rather elusive ‘palm of the hand’.
I’ve seen this band a few times now and I thoroughly recommend an audience with a Donna and the Aspinauts event if you are ever given the chance. I say event because they are so much more than just a band playing music, each of your five senses will be buzzing before the end of the first song, and by the end of the show, you’ll be definitely Aspi-fied.”
Heidi Everett
  OK, so February got lost somewhere in the Victorian bushfires and their chaos and yes, my blog has been so quiet. But, welcome to the March 2009 poetry challenge. Who knows, any of you coming to see us at any of the upcoming gigs for Donna and The Aspinauts may actually see some of the poems performed, complete with gestural signing and characterisations.
But right now, you have 30 days to send in your poetry challenges for the March 09 poetry jam. So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and in the next 30 days, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.  Come on, give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
THE BUTTERFLY CLUB
presents…Donna & The Aspinauts play at The Butterfly Club, Melbourne’s swanky home of camp kitsch, in an evening of irreverent avant-garde poetry and flamboyant musical surrealism with a satirical bent.
Dare to be there.
Wednesday 4th March 2009
8pm-9pm
Cost: $22
The Butterfly Club
204 Bank St, South Melbourne
For bookings, email: info@thebutterflyclub.com
other enquiries: phone (03)9690 2000
http://www.thebutterflyclub.com/
 Hi friends, colleagues and enthusiasts!
It’s Christmas and what a year! Read the rest of this entry »
 
Writing a book, making cards, artworks, crafts, CDs, DVDs are all wonderful creative things to do if you can’t take work outside of the house and you can always start a free quality blog which you can use to showcase your work, even link it to an online payment facility to take payments. But it’s hard to sell anything right now as people don’t have money and for many the future of their jobs is uncertain so they are understandably holding onto their money very tightly.
So what else can a stay at home parent, housebound or transport-limited person do? Read the rest of this entry »
Donna Williams is an Australian born adult with autism who was assessed as psychotic at the age of 2 in 1965, labelled disturbed in the 1970s and diagnosed as autistic in her 20s in 1991.
She acquired functional speech in late childhood and went on to become a qualified teacher with an honors degree in Sociology and a degree in Linguistics. She is the author of two international bestselling autobiographies and has 10 published books including 4 text books widely used in autism education and two books of poetry and prose.
As a screenwriter, she wrote the screenplay to “Nobody Nowhere”, the first book in her 4 book autobiographical series. That screenplay is currently under option to become a Hollywood film. She is an professional artist, singer-songwriter and published poet as well as a world renowned public speaker on autism now living with her husband in Australia. In her presentations she draws not only on her own experiences but on international experience as a professional autism consultant since 1996.
Donna’s is a speaker in demand around the world due to her unique perspective and ability to share her feelings and experiences on a very personal level. More information about her and her life’s work can be found on her website at http://www.donnawilliams.net .